Derry City's longest-serving fan backs Ruaidhri Higgins to bring the trophy home!

Pascal McCallion could well hold the honour of being Derry City’s longest-serving fan having followed the club home and away since 1949!

The end of the Second World War was still a recent memory when Pascal first saw his hometown club in action, away at Brantwood in 1949. Only 17 years old at the time, that began a lifelong passion in following Derry City home and away, and he has barely missed a game since.

Pascal has lived through the highs and lows of the club in the Irish League, the 13 years in exile that followed and the glorious return to football with the League of Ireland, which in itself has brought with it some memorable times, both good and bad.

His eyesight is not what it was, and his away trips are now a thing of the past, but Pascal still remembers his first game, an incredible 73 years ago, and just how bad a shape the Brandywell was at that time.

“My first game was away at Brantwood,” he recalls. “At that stage I was 17 and had never been to Belfast. After that I seen every major match, home and away with Derry City in the Irish League and now the League of Ireland.

“I remember the Brandywell at the time was a mud heap; it was like a plowed field and I remember they used to let the Agricultural Society win for their yearly show with horses and cattle and everything. They wouldn’t get away with it now, but some of the matches were played ankle-deep in muck.

“Harry Kavanagh, who was Chairman of Ards and held some position or other in the league; we weren’t allowed to play in Europe because he said the pitch wasn’t suitable, and the pitch wasn’t suitable. He was right about that.”

Pascal has witnessed some truly historical moments in the club’s history, and while silverware has never comfortably walked hand in hand with the club for any extended period, his love of his team has never wavered, even in the dark times.

“There were times it was my only enjoyment and the only thing I was interested in,” he says.

“I remember the Ballymena bus being burned. I was sitting in the old stand and I could see the smoke and that was the end of it. We went to Coleraine for a while and that fell through too. There were big crowds when we went back in. If the finances had been harnessed then, we would probably have our own ground now.

Down the years, I’ve been to Paris and Gothenburg and I’ve done some amount of travelling. It was ’65 we won the league and it was a 10-team league. We saw every match and the last match we won was against Cliftonville. I was picked up at the Guildhall and we went up to see them with the cup. There were no floodlights then and when they were presenting it, it was dusk so they had to present it inside, so we never saw it happening. There were many good times and many times when we were down, sometimes really down.”

Number one fans

What made his trips to the games even more enjoyable was that his wife Celine became a big a fan as he was, and the two were inseparable for years travelling here, there and everywhere to support the Candystripes.

Celine sadly passed away a few years ago, but still the memories of his wife remain.

“She had double vision and she said ‘That number 88 is a good player’ and it was Peter Hutton,” he laughed. “We went to every match together. We used to go with Jim O’Donnell on the bus with Northside but five years ago she took unwell. About that time I said to the boys to tell Jim I wouldn’t be going on the bus this year, but Jim came back with ‘We’ve got a new minibus’.

“The first match that year was in Galway and I was listening to it on the radio. The match was over at 9:50pm and there I was, six hours away and someone was sitting with Celine. I really miss the away matches, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

For the first time this Sunday, Pascal will be absent for a Cup Final involving Derry City, but he still backs his team to win by two clear goals. Whatever the result, he will be back at the Brandywell next February for his 74th year supporting the club.

“There were more enjoyable times than there were bad times, but there were plenty of bad times,” he admits. “A man involved with the Derry City club, called John Sweeney, he was like a father to me. My father died young and I was sent out to the Sweeneys. I used to be sent down to Billy McLaughlin’s on a Saturday morning to pick up the ball for the match. Billy would lace it up and set a bit of chord through it and John took that over to the pitch. There was just the one ball, but these days there are hundreds of balls. Everything changes, but Derry City have been a big part of my life.”